Launch Code OSS (VS Code from sources) into an isolated throwaway profile with unique debug ports so you can drive it with @playwright/cli AND attach a Node debugger via dap-cli in the same session. Use when working on VS Code itself and you want to interact with the running workbench, automate chat or UI flows, test…
Primary accessibility skill for VS Code. REQUIRED for new feature and contribution work, and also applies to updates of existing UI. Covers accessibility help dialogs, accessible views, verbosity settings, signals, ARIA announcements, keyboard navigation, and ARIA labels/roles.
Build and review cross-cutting agent-host chat behavior through lifecycle contributions. Use when adding turn lifecycle side effects, prompt or context injection, restored-history transformation, protocol-action observation, or when reviewing changes that add code to AgentSideEffects or AgentService.
Use when writing, recording, updating, or troubleshooting the agent host end-to-end tests under src/vs/platform/agentHost/test/node/e2e (black-box tests that drive the whole agent host over the AHP protocol, using a CapiReplayProxy record/replay system for Claude/Copilot/Codex). Covers adding a cross-provider test…
Analyze Agent Host debug log exports. Use when given an ah-logs or ahp-logs zip/folder, an Export Agent Host Debug Logs bundle, events.jsonl, AHP JSONL transport logs, Agent Host.log, remote-agenthost.log, or copilot-logs.
Identify all files a specific author contributed to on a branch vs its upstream, tracing code through renames. Use when asked who edited what, what code an author contributed, or to audit authorship before a merge. This skill should be run as a subagent — it performs many git operations and returns a concise table.
Run agent-driven VS Code performance or memory investigations. Use when asked to launch Code OSS, automate a VS Code scenario, run the Chat memory smoke runner, capture renderer heap snapshots, take workflow screenshots, compare run summaries, or drive a repeatable scenario before heap-snapshot analysis.
Use when validating Azure DevOps pipeline changes for the VS Code build. Covers queueing builds, checking build status, viewing logs, and iterating on pipeline YAML changes without waiting for full CI runs.
Run chat perf benchmarks and memory leak checks against the local dev build or any published VS Code version. Use when investigating chat rendering regressions, validating perf-sensitive changes to chat UI, or checking for memory leaks in the chat response pipeline.
Use when creating or changing VS Code chat pet sprite art, sprite sheets, state animations, eye treatments, Stable/Insiders variants, or pet transitions under src/vs/workbench/contrib/chat/browser/widget/media/chatPet.
Find and read timestamped process logs from Code OSS dev builds, including main.log, renderer.log, extension host logs, and agenthost.log. For bundles produced by Export Agent Host Debug Logs, use agent-host-logs.
Use when creating or updating component fixtures for screenshot testing, or when designing UI components to be fixture-friendly. Covers fixture file structure, theming, service setup, CSS scoping, async rendering, and common pitfalls.
Architecture and hard-won debugging lessons for customization enablement (plugins, MCP servers, agents, skills, instructions) in the agent host. Use when changing how customizations are discovered, published, enabled/disabled, or handed to a provider SDK; when a customization shows the wrong enabled state in the UI…
The VS Code design philosophy — a shared Values→Principles→Moves vocabulary for reasoning about UI in design terms instead of raw pixels. Use when designing, building, reviewing, or giving feedback on any visual surface; when deciding a radius, spacing, type role, icon size, border, color, or motion; or when…
Investigate and fix CI failures on a pull request. Use when CI checks fail on a PR branch — covers finding the PR, identifying failed checks, downloading logs and artifacts, extracting the failure cause, and iterating on a fix. Requires the gh CLI.
Guidelines for fixing unhandled errors from the VS Code error telemetry dashboard. Use when investigating error-telemetry issues with stack traces, error messages, and hit/user counts. Covers tracing data flow through call stacks, identifying producers of invalid data vs. consumers that crash, enriching error messages…
Analyze V8 heap snapshots to investigate memory leaks and retention issues. Use when given .heapsnapshot files, asked to compare before/after snapshots, asked to find what retains objects, or investigating why objects survive GC. Provides snapshot parsing, comparison, retainer-path helpers, and scratchpad scripts.
Use this when working on the VS Code integrated browser ("browserView") to understand its architecture and mental model. Covers the embedded Chromium browser, its editor tab, navigation, overlay/layout, sessions, and agent browser tools under src/vs/platform/browserView and src/vs/workbench/contrib/browserView.
Use when running integration tests in the VS Code repo. Covers scripts/test-integration.sh (macOS/Linux) and scripts/test-integration.bat (Windows), their supported arguments for filtering, and the difference between node.js integration tests and extension host tests.
Audit code for memory leaks and disposable issues. Use when reviewing event listeners, DOM handlers, lifecycle callbacks, or fixing leak reports. Covers addDisposableListener, Event.once, MutableDisposable, DisposableStore, and onWillDispose patterns.